Security

AT&T is making a major telecom investment in many areas of its business. The telecom giant cites the explosion of high-speed networks, data consuming devices and the move to IP as the reason for this investment.

The money is being spent to become a larger global player as well as a big provider of utility computing services.

Where will the company be spending money?

Subsea Fiber: Expect the company to expand capacity to area of the world experiencing economic growth such as Asia and the Middle East.

MPLS Routers: The company will add a number of these throughout the world in order to ensure there is proper capacity in areas of rapid business growth.

Metro Ethernet: The company will invest in a manner which allows it to have such services available in 39 countries.

DSL: Investments will allow AT&T to provide this service in 21 countries.

As AT&T gets more involved in the utility computing market, I expect them to butt heads with Sun, Amazon and Google. Google is a past foe - Amazon and Sun are new ones.

While a year ago the cable companies were eating the lunch of AT&T and Verizon, there has been a rapid about-face in the market which has been fueled by the wireless arms of both LECS, IPTV and well as international expansion.

I believe the cable companies will have to do something soon to be able to compete effectively in emerging markets.

In all, this news is fantastic for the telecom market as AT&T is spending 33 percent more than last year and double what they spent in 2006.

It will be great to see these investments allow AT&T to can overseas and whether it can compete effectively against other utility computing players in the market.

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As most people looking for technical talent know, in the U.S. there is full employment in the tech space. In addition, it is very difficult to hire foreign tech workers as the government makes workers and employers jump through hoops to get tech talent into the country.

I, like many, believe having the strongest technology workforce is one of the key ways for the U.S. economy to remain competitive.

Consider the fact that founders of Google were not born in the US and moreover, Google is responsible for thousands of new jobs in this country.

Bain and Huawei are changing their bid for 3COM in a manner that does not change the financial elements of the deal but it minimizes Huawei's access to certain Ethernet technologies.

Last week, the parties pulled their application with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, a 12-agency government panel amid concerns it would be rejected. A number of members of Congress had expressed concern about the security implications of allowing a Chinese-owned entity to exercise influence over the technology company.

If this transaction does go through, I believe it will increase the number of Chinese companies investing in US-based companies.

This may lead to more consolidation in the market but just as important, it is possible the Chinese will have the deep pockets needed to help grow a number of US-based technology companies at a time when capital may be more difficult to come by.

How many colds and viruses are picked up because of shared keyboards and phones? Now there is a solution for the problem of spreading germs through shared keyboards at least. If you think this is a small problem consider call centers where i would surmise at least one million agents worldwide share keyboards.

To solve this problem, a company called Unotron, a manufacturer of something called SpillSeal technology, this week introduced a product called GermStopper SpillSeal Washable Corded Keyboard S6000K.

What technology does the company utilize this germ killing? How about a powerful, broad-spectrum, inorganic, silver-based biocide which is integrated into the plastic of the SpillSeal Washable Corded Keyboard S6000K.